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I haven't had one of theirs, but for years now I've made the same thing only in medium depth and used it for mating nucs. I love them. I'd make them out of an eight frame now and split it three ways with 1/4" laun now as I'm tired of lifting the ten frame ones with one by dividers:

Anyone use a queen castle from Brushy Mountain? If so what do you think? Headed that way next week and may pick one up.

I bought three queen castles from Brushy Mountain. I also have one queen castle from Kelley Company. I like the one from Brushy Mountain better. The Brushy Mountain Queen Castle has a bottom board; Kelley's queen castle has plywood (?) attached to the bottom. An attached board on the bottom makes the queen castle heavier and more difficult to clean. A separate bottom board makes the queen castle easier to clean, and lighter.

There is not enough profanity in the English language to describe plywood from Communist China. Plywood from Communist China has a very thin veneer. Unfortunately, Kelley uses 4 pieces of plywood for the cover for their queen castle. Brushy Mountain uses solid wood for the tops of the queen castle..

I haven't had one of theirs, but for years now I've made the same thing only in medium depth and used it for mating nucs. I love them. I'd make them out of an eight frame now and split it three ways with 1/4" laun now as I'm tired of lifting the ten frame ones with one by dividers:

A commercial queen breeder that I know uses nucs similar to the Better Bee nuc. The commercial bee breeder makes 4 frame medium nucs with an attached bottom. He also uses a round disk over the entrance similar to the one sold by Better Bee. Therefore, he is able to move the nuc or trap the virgin queen inside the colony.

They do use mini frames, which is nice. You can over winter them in two chambers that have 8 frames. Works nicely. Depending on howm any hives you have and what you are looking to do, that will determine what mating nucs you will want.

Queen rearing takes a lot of resources in bees and support colonies if you are looking to raise more then a couple. You will quickly find that resources will be hard to pull from. That is why we went with the version at Lazy Bee.

They do use mini frames, which is nice. You can over winter them in two chambers that have 8 frames. Works nicely. Depending on howm any hives you have and what you are looking to do, that will determine what mating nucs you will want.

Queen rearing takes a lot of resources in bees and support colonies if you are looking to raise more then a couple. You will quickly find that resources will be hard to pull from. That is why we went with the version at Lazy Bee.

My mini frames ended up in the garbage. It is too much work to keep mini nucs alive. My job a teenager was to fill a super with empty mini frames and put those supers on colonies for the honey flow. After the honey flow I would store the mini frames in a walk-in freezer for use in mini nucs.

No kick backs. Jamie, the owner of Lazy Bee, he and I talked at length last season and talked about what would be the easiest system to use without a major strain on resources. He put together a prototype and I loved it. We did a little modification and went from there.

No kick backs. Jamie, the owner of Lazy Bee, he and I talked at length last season and talked about what would be the easiest system to use without a major strain on resources. He put together a prototype and I loved it. We did a little modification and went from there.

No kick backs at all. I love this system. I used it all year.

No one has a queen castle using medium Illinois frames. Maybe Lazy Bee will make one. I like the bottom board that Brushy Mountain uses as opposed to the solid bottom that Kelley and maybe Lazy Bee uses.

I also like four or five medium (Illinois) frame nucs for mating nucs. I also like attached bottom boards for ease of transportation. No one manufacturese this type of mating nuc either.